28 May - Ning Kwong, Morley

LWA had this birthday and he chose the local "Chinese" place to celebrate. Instead of ordering individually or ala carte, we decided to go for the banquet menu. The following were the dishes we had:

Entrees consisted of spring rolls, wontons, boxing chicken and a battered fried prawn. The spring roll and wonton were pretty ordinary, the prawn was better but for me, the boxing chicken was the tastiest.

Next course was chicken and sweet corn soup. This was nice, served piping hot.

The "main" course dishes consisted of:

Lemon chicken. Deep fried in a sweet lemon sauce.

Fried rice, with bits of prawn, char siu, egg and peas.

Sweet and sour fish.

Salt and pepper pork ribs. These had bold flavour (probably MSG) and were very tasty.

Chilli prawns. This dish had decent bite and by the end of it, my mouth was slightly burning.

"Satay" beef. More like beef with peanut sauce.

Mixed vegetables.

All of this was washed down with Chinese tea. I was going to have a fried icecream but was too full afterwards to even contemplate the thought. For $25, it was a decent feed.

19 May - Villa da Vinci, Ballajura

CB and I had dinner at Villa da Vinci for our anniversary this year. For a Thursday night, this place was actually quite busy.

To start off with, I ordered some garlic bread. These were full of buttery garlicky goodness. Whilst rich from the butter, it wasn't crispy in the middle. Oh well, can't have it both ways.

I washed down both entree and mains with a LLB.

As a main, I chose the barramundi and chips. One pet hate of mine is serving things over chips (they go soggy). This serve was quite large and after I ate all the garlic bread, was struggling to finish this off (due to size and the oil).

The serving sizes here definitely looked good and I would like to come back and try some other things on their menu.

14 May - Fast Eddys, Morley

CB and I went bowling with some friends at Morley Bowl. I won our friendly rivalry with a higher average over two games, and so won a victory icecream nut sundae from Fast Eddys. Not as good as a Coit Tower obviously.

My Fandos

Here's my fandos or Fake Nandos. The wings are brined then marinated in Nandos marinade, along with a Chinese shop peri peri powder. Grilled over charcoal and then brushed with Nandos chilli sauce. They were pretty good, this is my new way of making charcoal chicken. Mmmmm.

14 May - Ironbark Brewery / Yahava Koffeeworks, Caversham

LWA was back in Perth and a group of us decided to grab some lunch out in the Swan Valley.

I went for the "The Big Mallee Bull" which consisted of "triple decker scotch fillet steak sandwich with egg, salad... the lot!". The burger wasn't *that* big, but was decently filling. The sweet potato chips which were served alongside weren't that crispy.

After some coffee tastings, I had an affogato. This was strong but really good.

Home style chicken hor fun

As Kylie Kwong would say, this is my version of chicken hor fun, inspired by the dry fried beef hor fun I had in HK. This was a mix between the horfun and char kway teow, and included chicken (der), bean sprouts, onion, spring onion, garlic and chives.

I got quite a bit of wok hei but I need to get the seasonings right. Whilst I did use soy sauce, it wasn't salty enough. With pickled chillies though, this went down rather well.

23 Apr - Mez Cuisine Restaurant, Northbridge

A group of us headed into Northbridge on Easter Saturday to celebrate Aunt's birthday. The chosen destination was Mez Cuisine, on James Street. We were recommended the meze menu and 6 out of 9 decided to go for the meat and seafood option. The set menu was $45 per person.



1st Course - Trio of Dips, Pitta & Salad. The dips that I had a taste of included hoummus, tzatziki and a fish egg based one. Out of the three, the fish egg was the best. The others had olive and a capsicum one which looked good. The pita bread was served piping hot and was a good starter.



2nd Course Seafood - King Prawns, Fish Fillets, Mussels, Scallops, Calamari, Occy. We weren't given mussels cos they were out, I'm not sure if we got anything substituted. All the options on this course were delicious. There was some mushroom risotto underneath the prawns which was very tasty and creamy.



We were also served a Greek salad which was nicely dressed and fresh.



3rd Course Meat - Lamb Kleftiko, Chicken & Pork Souvlaki served with Roast Vegetables. Starting to get a little full at this stage, but wow, the lamb was melt in the mouth tender. I got to eat a lot of lamb as everyone else was starting to feel the pinch, and CB not eating red meat. The souvlaki was OK, but after eating the lamb, paled in comparison.



4th Course - Dessert Plate to Share. Not a big sweets fan, this was my least favoured course. I gave my Turkish delight to CB and ate my baklava, orange cake and Galaktopourekko.



I also had an affogato during the dessert round. The icecream was a little icy on its own, but once mixed into the coffee, was delicious.